


The Baum is the Key (and the Rosen)

by queenklu



Category: Smallville RPF, Supernatural RPF
Genre: Babies, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-09-20
Updated: 2010-09-20
Packaged: 2017-10-12 00:57:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,094
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/119039
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/queenklu/pseuds/queenklu
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Misha Collins, prophit of the lord. ...Yeah, he's not hearing a ring to it either.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Baum is the Key (and the Rosen)

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the m2_homegoods fic exchange for cadencecascade

Misha would have been more upset about the scalding hot coffee spraying out of his nose and mouth, might even feel bad for the person his snot- and saliva-diluted caffeine splattered on, but that person had quite literally appeared out of thin air.  
   
“Hello, Misha Collins,” the man said in a low, near-monotone voice. As if his coat wasn’t staining with an irremovable combination of phlegm and coffee. As if he hadn’t just beamed down from the mother ship. As if Misha wasn’t wearing socks, shamrock boxers, and a t-shirt left by a hookup long forgotten and much-more-appreciated for it.  
   
“I am Castiel, an angel of the Lord.”  
   
Oh…fuck.  
   
Why the hell didn’t Misha have a bodyguard? Jensen and Jared had a bodyguard. And it could be very well argued that, while their fans were perpetually trying to get them into each other’s pants, at least they didn’t have aspirations for world domination.  
   
Seriously. _Seriously._  
   
“It’s…always nice to meet a fan,” Misha said in a small voice. Except…well, this guy wasn’t even trying, which was almost sadder. Misha liked to think that he contributed to trench coat sales in some small way, and this guy? This guy had on some sort of baggy cargo army-surplus jacket and jeans that looked like they were pulled out of a dumpster in a bad part of town. For all of that, he seemed fairly clean despite rocking at least two days of stubble. Misha just wished he’d _blink_ once in a while.  
   
“You do not understand,” the man intoned. At least he had the voice right. “You have been chosen.”  
   
“Alrighty,” Misha said, trying to sound upbeat about it as he forced his spine to bend back in his chair. His cell was just on the other side of his desk, if he could reach it—  
   
“Chuck is dead.”  
   
That brought him up short, cold lead twisting in his belly. Oh Jesus. This guy had _killed_ somebody? Jesus Jesus Jesus.  
   
For the first time his visitor looked mildly uncomfortable, shifting his weight. “It…I might suggest, Mr. Collins, that—or rather request—that you refrain from using the Lord’s name in vain. At least once you have accepted—“  
   
“I beg your pardon?” Misha demanded, only a little strangled.  
   
“Chuck,” he said again, as if that explained everything, “is no longer of this world.”  
   
“…Who?”  
   
That earned him a sharp head tilt. “The prophet of the lord.”  
   
Ohh man. Misha was fucked. Misha was so, so fucked. Chuck dying wasn’t even _canon._  
   
Casti—er, the creepy dude—was still staring at him as if waiting for some sort of verbal confirmation, and Misha heard something like his voice say, “Oh that’s too bad.”  
   
“Yes,” the ‘angel’ nodded. “We were much aggrieved at the loss until we heard of tell of your sermons.”  
   
“My, uh.” Oh no. “My sermons?”  
   
The nodding grew more vigorous. “Your following is most devout. We are truly blessed to have such a pervasive talent on the side of the lord.”  
   
“You’re talking about my minions,” Misha choked out, then, “You’re talking about my _twitter.”_  
   
“Yes,” he said, the same shine in his eyes that Misha worked very hard on, the one Castiel had every single time good triumphed over evil on the show.  
   
“…And Chuck is dead.”  
   
“Yes.” Not so shiny now.  
   
“And you think I’m the next prophet of the lord.”  
   
“… _Yes,_ ” he repeated as if speaking to…well, Dean Winchester.  
   
“Right. Okay.” Misha swiveled a nearly nonchalant inch in his chair, then back. “So how’d Chuck die again?”  
   
The strange man stared at Misha’s blender as if someone had told him if he watched long enough candy would come out. “Freak electric toothbrush accident.”  
   
“Ooookay,” Misha said, word coming out past the edge of hysteric as he twirled halfway again, sure that he’d be stopped but in no way prepared for the way tall-dark-and-seriously-hashing-his-chi _appeared_ just beyond his knees and clamped big-knuckled hands around the armrests of the chair.  
   
“Oh Je—Jeesy Creezy,” Misha choked.  
   
“You must combine your forces with those of the bald Jew,” the angel—it was a fucking angel, Misha could _see the fucking shadow of its fucking wings—_ intoned, and disappeared.  
   
~*~  
   
 _Right. That’s it._  
   
Misha wasn’t going online anymore. Er, for a while. Or a bit. At the very least the rest of today.  
   
Because when one starts hallucinating angels from a television show one is paid to work on, it becomes fairly evident that one needs to take a giant step back.  
   
Oh jeez, he needed to lie down.  
   
Or— _not_ because staying stationary wasn’t doing anything for the gnawing constant ache in his ribs whispering all of the things he could be missing right that very moment: a Canadian Mountie uprising in Northern Kentucky, Jessica Alba confessing her undying love for Jennifer Lopez via giant cupcake, Jensen caught snogging Jared in the back seat at a drive in movie.  
   
(Hey, if Jared had any say in the matter, that was very much a possibility. It was just Jensen who was apparently hung up on this whole ‘straight and engaged to be married’ gig now. And the fact that he didn’t seem to know about Jared wanting him more than Michelle Obama wanted Misha’s twitter persona. Which was, like, a lot.)  
   
The thing that was really eating him (No, really, Amy Whinehouse) was that he was shirking his duties. Misha realized he was their unofficial liaison with the internet world and accepted that responsibility with great...greatness. Kripke’s publicists didn’t even hardly bother these days, confident that he was ruthlessly efficient and constantly on the job. Except here he was, off the job, and if Jared and Jensen were the last ones to know they were both gay and out of the closet then honestly, how could he ever speak to either of them again?  
   
No. Bad. Withdrawal talking. He just needed something to do with his hands.  
   
Misha took up knitting. And then beat boxing. At the same time. The results consisted of entirely too many doilies and exactly one verse:  
   
 _“My name is Misha! I’m very glad to meetcha! If you want a rhyme-off then you know I’m gonna beatcha!”_  
   
As far as distraction techniques went it seemed to work alright, until he fell asleep on the couch tangled up in yarn with a half-kitted microphone, and woke up with the _creepy possibly an angel guy_ scowling down at him.  
   
“AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!”  
   
“You have made no progress on creating an alliance.”  
   
“Yes, well!” Misha coughed up a dust bunny and dragged his bruised body off the floor. “It’s rather difficult, seeing as there isn’t a section in the phone book for Jewish men with no hair!”  
   
The angel frowned. “You have not looked.”  
   
Misha gave him a look, _how’s that for looking_. “It’s been one day.”  
   
Brown eyes narrowed at him.  
   
“And anyway, I can’t Google ‘bald Jew’—it sounds vaguely derogatory!”  
   
“He has searched for you.”  
   
“He—What?”  
   
Fauxstiel kept his eyebrow arched.  
   
Misha felt inexplicably defensive, jerking his arms to fold over his chest. “Well, did you give him better parameters to work with?”  
   
“You are the One Who Makes His Own Furniture.”  
   
“Oh for—“ Misha gave up, shut up, and curled up under his new hand-knit blanket, mumbling into the yellow crochet of his pillow case, “You could just tell him my name.”  
   
Fauxstiel didn’t answer, probably because he was already long gone.  
   
Misha wondered if it was also because he’d inadvertently let slip how very much he didn’t want to be a part of this. Let the Bald Jew find him if it was so terribly important. Honestly.  
   
~*~  
   
Misha caved the very next morning re: the internet. He surfed the web until his eyes crossed, until he felt saturated with html and veranda font and yes, thank god, his twitter was still there, his minions anxious for their leader, completely oblivious to the fact that he’d been recruited against his will in a battle between heaven and hell (apparently (maybe)). His little army.  
   
An army of vidders and writers and fangirls, who if ever faced with a real demon would last about as long as a piece of string cheese defending itself from a horde of 2nd graders.  
   
Unless he trained them.  
   
Misha burst out laughing, a too-loud crazy sound, and put his head in his hands. Oh man. Lucky Chuck. Freak toothbrush accident was looking pretty good right now.  
   
He had to put forth some effort, though, or Fauxstiel would be back camping on his solar plexus. Not that that was anything less than heart attack inducing, but honestly? It wasn’t like he was getting visions.  
   
Not that he was really trying. But still. According to the show, Chuck didn’t have much choice in the matter. Maybe Fauxstiel’s Chuck had been different.  
   
 _Here goes nothing._  
   
“Dear Google,” Misha muttered under his breath as he typed, “please don’t scar me for life too badly.” _Enter._  
   
~*~  
   
“My eyes…”  
   
Fauxstiel handed him a glass of orange juice. Misha thought about asking him to turn it into a screwdriver, but he didn’t want to push his luck. Too much.  
   
“I hope in your crazy Supernatural-induced hallucination there is a Dean Winchester who is giving you a lot of shit.”  
   
“He has been rather busy recently re-teaching Sam the intricacies of doing laundry.”  
   
Misha blinked. Castiel—and some part of his brain could suddenly accept that, now—didn’t.  
   
“Oh…kay.” Misha stood, needing either more or less caffeine. “Okay. Um. Did you want something?”  
   
“No, thank you.”  
   
“So I can call off the search for old Jewish men?” Long shot, but he just felt…dirty. You just don’t _do_ that with a dreidel.  
   
“I never said he was old.”  
   
“A young bald guy?” Misha perked up a very little. That could narrow it down. Bald, Jewish, and with some sort of skin defect.  
   
“I never said he was young, either.”  
   
“Are you _kidding me?”_ Misha snapped. “I haven’t been taunted like this since my second grade boyfriend stole my lunchbox!”  
   
Castiel sighed. “I _cannot_ tell you. I’m…contractually obligated.”  
   
“Contractually?” he started, then backed of with his hands held up. He did not—in any real way—need to know. “Did you need something? Because I think I still have some part of my retinas that aren’t scarred.”  
   
“I simply wished to remind you not to shirk your prophetic duties. Go forth,” Castiel said, before Misha could make more than a vague noise in the back of his throat, “and tweet.”  
   
Aaaaand he was gone. Shocker.  
   
~*~   
   
[](http://pics.livejournal.com/queenklu/pic/0006yxsq)

[](http://pics.livejournal.com/queenklu/pic/0006z9b9)  
   
~*~  
   
Misha got a call from Kripke mid-afternoon asking him to babysit the littlest Kripke, which…was something he wished was weird.  
   
Not that he minded being the one trusted with the boss’s kid on those occasions when the Kripkes needed a date night yes tonight I don’t care what party is being thrown, Eric, the least you can do is take me out once in a while why don’t you call that nice boy Misha? Which, Misha was pretty sure, was really just a safeguard against seeing Jensen or Jared holding a baby. Like anyone’s ovaries were safe from something like that.  
   
Except for Abigail’s, because she wasn’t even two yet. And also the baby being held, so she could afford to be smug about it. And Misha didn’t even like the Js like that, _or_ have ovaries.  
   
In any case.  
   
“I told her about the party,” Eric whined, like maybe he thought Misha or anyone in the known world had the cast iron balls it would take to say no to his wife.  
   
“It’s okay, I won’t miss it.” True. CW parties tended to make Misha feel…old. And sort of grungy and weird-looking. Also he kind of hated Tom Welling.  
   
Oh, it wasn’t anything serious, and not really anything that was Tom’s fault. Tom on his own, Tom in a group of friends, basically Tom-in-small-doses was just fine. Tom Welling at a party was just—such a bad fucking plan. Nuns drank at Tom Welling parties, Amish did strip teases, fundamentalist Christians got tattoos saying ‘I heart Darwin,’ and not only did they never remember what led them to do it, they never ever felt Tom was to blame. Not even Tom seemed to know he was causing it. Whatever ‘it’ exactly was.  
   
Jared called it the PheTomenon, but Misha was pretty sure he kind of hated Tom Welling too, for slightly different reasons involving one Jensen Ackles and what may or may not have gone down at one such party ahem. The PheTomenon was thus: Anything that shouldn’t happen, will.  
   
So yeah. Misha could babysit the Spawn of Kripke if it got him out of that situation. He had done a lot worse to get him away from a PheTomenon.  
   
“Not to worry, Mr. Kripke. I’ll make sure your daughter is home before curfew.”  
   
“You think you’re funny,” Eric said, and hung up. Misha sighed and went to get his keys.  
   
~*~  
   
Misha was going to teach Abigail to be Abby Sciuto when she grew up. Yes he was.  
   
Or right now.  
   
“Such a cutie,” he crooned, adjusting the spider on the scrunchie of her second ponytail. Even if ponytail were stretching it. Ponyfluff. “Can you say ‘adipocere?’” He held up one of her hands and said for her in an appropriate voice, “ _Forensics were just testing me_!”  
   
Abigail spit up a little accusingly.  
   
“Yeah, yeah. Just wait until you have a farting hippo named Bert,” Misha said, swinging her up onto one hip to dance her towards his laptop. “You’ll be singin’ a diff’rent tune.”  
   
Pretty slim pickings from the minions, when he checked. Ghandi was still in the top five suggested—he really needed to make theology classes mandatory once he ruled the world—as well as the dad from Everybody Loves Raymond and Britney Spears. The more likely candidates were few and far between, but he did get someone named St Paul (Jewish, apparently bald with a pointy beard who liked stoning Christians to death, but was also several thousand years dead himself) and Ben Kingsley.  
   
Who, it turned out, was not Jewish, but Quaker, and originally Hindu.  
   
Misha groaned and dropped his head onto the keyboard. “I suppose it’s for the best,” he mumbled to the spacebar, “That would be an entirely unpleasant conversation to have with Sir Ben.”  
   
 _Let’s have some fun this beat is sick, I wanna take a ride on your disco—_  
   
“Hello?”  
   
“Collins, where the fuck are you?”  
   
“I’m sitting on a baby, Murray. What do you want?” Yes, he knew Chad. And as long as they stayed off a first name basis, that would stay a little less weird.  
   
“I don’t give a shit about your kinky sex, _haul ass._ Hell,” Chad said, and you knew it was bad if he downgraded his expletives, “bring the kid, I do not care.”  
   
“Uh,” said Misha, “Have you met Mrs. Kripke? I value my T-E-S-T-I-C-L-E-S.”  
   
“I can spell, D-I-C-K-W-A-D.”  
   
“The baby can’t.”  
   
“It’s a Kripke. Are you _sure?_ ”  
   
Point. Misha gave Abigail a sideways look, which she returned around the building block she was gumming. “What exactly is the emergency?”  
   
“Okay, fine, you want to shoot the shit.” Deep breath on the other line, which didn’t actually mean anything. Chad was on the CW for a reason. “You know Jensen—“  
   
“Why no, what a funny name.”  
   
“Shut the fuck up,” Chad ordered conversationally. “You know Jenny and his girl are getting hitched, now?”  
   
“If he hears you call him Jenny—“ Misha started, then gave it up as a lost cause. “Whatever. Yes, I know. It hit the internet yesterday.”  
   
“Right, well, it didn’t hit one _Jared fucking-lecki_ , do you get what I’m saying?”  
   
“Wait, _what?”_ Oh no. Oh fuck, fuck no. The PheTomenon. “How the hell—“  
   
“I do not know,” Chad enunciated—Chad. Enunciated.—into the phone. “But now he’s crying in his beer and swearing he’s going to propose to Genevieve—”  
   
“ _What?_ ” Misha said again, loud enough this time that Abigail let out a disapproving burble. “He’s not even _dating_ Genevieve!”  
   
“When. Has that. Stopped. _Anybody?_ ”  
   
“Oh my god.”  
   
“Yes, and I have done every fucking thing except propose to him myself and I was this far from getting a twist-tie when my agent kidnapped me, and now I’m on a plane to Bora Bora.”  
   
“What?”  
   
“Well, on my way to a plane. Do you get what I’m saying, Collins? Jared is _unsupervised_. At a _Tom Welling party_.”  
   
“I can’t—I’ve got—“  
   
“Go,” Castiel said about two inches from the back of his neck, and Misha screamed like a little girl and dropped the phone. Abigail clapped her hands and giggled. “I can watch the child.”  
   
Misha clutched his cell to his pounding heart and looked between the two of them, Castiel with his still stained shirt and jacket, and Abigail with her spider scrunchies.  
   
And that’s how Misha Collins wound up at a CW party with an infant Kripke strapped to his chest wearing neon green fuzzy earmuffs as big as her face to protect against…well, the PheTomenon for one, and the fact that music should never be this loud ever—and an angel of the lord holding her diaper bag.  
   
They’d crashed a costume party, apparently, and if Misha had known that…well, he still wouldn’t have wanted to go, but he might have not wanted to go a little less. The back end of a horse was running on a treadmill, or stumbling proactively, looking a little lost and confused to why he couldn’t seem to reach his beer. A man dressed as a taco shoved by, shrieking at the person behind him that the punch they’d spilled on him looked like ‘fucking blood you fucking pussy’ (Misha checked the fit on Abigail’s earmuffs), and—  
   
“Mulberry tart?” a white man dressed as Michelle Obama offered, and Misha felt all the blood drain out of his face.  
   
“Uh,” he blurted. Over Michelle’s shoulder someone was watching gay porn (thank god thank god the littlest Kripke was preoccupied with Misha’s chin) and _oh fuck was that a crown?_  
   
“We seek the Padalecki,” Castiel informed the air.  
   
Michelle’s long eyelashes blinked, once. “He’s in the back. Who are you supposed to be?”  
   
“Castiel, angel of the—“  
   
“Oh God,” Misha choked out and made a run for it.  
   
~*~  
   
“Whoa,” was the first thing Misha heard after he slammed the door shut behind him, trapping all the crazy inside the house. The first things his eyes actually registered after a disapproving eyebrow, the sweep of moonlight over a cheekbone, was one Jared Padalecki slumped in the arms of a man wearing a hat that wouldn’t look amiss on Abigail, considering that it appeared to have both a beak and little stubby ears.  
   
“Don’t you think including an actual kid in your costume is a bit overboard?” the man in the owl hat continued, catching Jared a little firmer around the waist when his considerable bulk started to slip.  
   
“Yes,” Misha answered honestly, then moved to check on Jared. “What happened?”  
   
Jared’s head lolled loosely in his hands, but he still managed to scrounge enough muscle coordination to smile. “Mishaaaa…” The smile vanished, words slipping out one at a time. “PheTomenon happened to me.”  
   
“Fucking Tom Welling,” Misha sighed.  
   
“Fucking Tom Welling,” Jared agreed.  
   
“Hey, now,” Owl hat grunted, hoisting Jared up a little higher.  
   
“Oh, hey, I’ve got him,” Misha offered, stepping in on Jared’s other side.  
   
“And you are?” Owl hat asked, not meanly, more bewildered.  
   
“Misha Collins,” he said, stretching an arm across Abigail and Jared—who’d just now noticed the baby and proceeded to sniff her—to shake hands. “I work with Jared and Jensen.”  
   
“Jensen,” Jared moaned piteously. Abigail wrapped her hand around his nose and squeaked her amusement.  
   
“Okay…” the other man mumbled with a thoroughly sideways look.  
   
“Chad called me.” Still offering. Not defensive. _Trust me trust me trust me._ People _liked_ Misha. This was an established fact. He had over 39,000 followers to attest to that. “To come pick him up.”  
   
“And the baby?”  
   
“Littlest Kripke.” Now Misha couldn’t help shooting him a look out of the corner of his eye. “What’s with the third degree?”  
   
“I’m sorry, I don’t instinctively trust people on a first name basis with Chad.”  
   
“Dammit.” When had that happened? “Well, I hate to have to point this out, but you’re wearing an owl hat.”  
   
Things got relatively quiet, considering Abigail and Jared’s nonsensical gibberish to each other, which was cute enough Misha cringed for the sake of his nonexistent ovaries. Between the three of them (Misha was willing to swear on a stack of bibles that Abigail was coaxing him along) they managed to wrangle Jared another six steps down the driveway. Then:  
   
“It’s not the PheTomenon.”  
   
“What?” Misha was slightly preoccupied checking his pockets for keys while Owl hat bodychecked Jared against the car to hold him up.  
   
He sighed. Jared sniffed his neck. “It’s the Rosey Effect.”  
   
“Uh-huh. Who’s Rosey?”  
   
Two sets of wide eyes stared at him, and one of those sets was on a hat. “I am.”  
   
“…Naturally.” Misha quickly busied himself with the car.  
   
Jared landed in the backseat like a felled tree, hard enough to rock the entire vehicle. Misha stuffed his legs into something that resembled not-outside-the-car and shoved the door shut, ignoring his friend and co-star’s pathetic whimper of pain.  
   
“Um, okay then,” he said, straightening, and held out his hand for ‘Rosey’ to shake again. “Thanks for your help. I’ve got it—“ He was not letting go. Misha stared down at their hands, back at Rosey’s arched eyebrow.  
   
“You are not seriously going to pull a Britney Spears with that baby, are you?”  
   
Misha extricated his hand, all patience gone. “Look. ‘Rosey.’ I was babysitting when I got the call. My boss’s kid. They have the car with the car seat and didn’t answer their cell the whole way over, for reasons I do _not_ want to think about, so _yes_ I took a risk, but I guess I thought I had a pretty good chance with an ang—er.”  
   
With Castiel, angel of the lord, riding shotgun. Huh. Speaking of whom…?  
   
“With a…friend,” he finished lamely, “holding her. Their house is just a couple blocks away, I’m a granny driver, I promise you this baby will make it home in one piece.”  
   
Blue eyes—pale blue, so pale they were almost silver in the moonlight—stared directly into Misha’s, absorbing, assessing. Misha went still. Not a shocked still, a calm, steady still. A truth still. A strength still. Then Abigail wrapped her chubby hand around his chin and pulled, and the connection was gone.  
   
“I’ll go with you,” Rosey said, no smarm or sneer to it, and moved until there was barely a baby’s breadth between them. “That way you don’t have to worry about her demanding your attention.”  
   
“Thank you,” Misha said and meant it. It didn’t even feel risky during the hand off, settling Abigail firmly in this stranger’s arms before making sure the shoulder straps were on safe. Abigail didn’t even fuss about it, switching her grasp from Misha’s chin to Rosey’s with an ease befitting the queen.  
   
“Hey there,” Rosey crooned softly, tickling her nose with his own. “I like your spider scrunchie.”  
   
Misha’s ovaries were in serious trouble.  
   
~*~  
   
Abigail conked out on the drive home, which turned talking into an impossibility (when before it’d just been something they weren’t doing). It certainly took the edge off whatever awkwardness there… Well, honestly, there wasn’t any awkwardness. Which was just, well, _awkward_.  
   
Misha never claimed to make sense.  
   
“Here we are, Chez Kripke,” he announced (quietly) as he pulled the car into park. Rosey’s eyes widened a little at the edges, but it was hard to tell whether that was because he was actually impressed or just trying to appear it. Misha caught himself staring a split second before his companion did, snapping his eyes back to the steering wheel under his hands. “Would you, um. Would you like to come in?”  
   
Now his eyes really were wide.  
   
“You don’t have to hang around,” Misha promised, talking fast, “I’m just thinking it might be—she might not wake up if we don’t switch off.”  
   
“Good thinking,” Rosey whispered after a moment, gave Misha a smile that made something actually _backflip_ , and got out of the car, moving as slow as he could so he wouldn’t jostle Abigail.  
   
Misha swallowed some sort of inappropriate noise at the sight of one hand hovering protectively at the back of her head. Even… Okay, _weird,_ but the two of them walking up to this dark house, fishing out the keys, kicking a stuffed bunny out of the hallway as they tiptoed towards the nursery… That was. It felt like—like maybe this was a real thing. That they were a couple, married, putting their child to bed.  
   
WHICH NO, _NO,_ HOLD THE PHONE, _BAD._ What kind of— _No!_ Did he know this guy at all? He most certainly— And even if he did, that was just.  
   
“Okay?” Rosey prompted, right behind him, and Misha jumped hard enough to hurt.  
   
“Yeah,” he promised when he could flash a weak smile, “Just hang on a sec.” And he dropped to a crouch, feeling along the wall for Abigail’s nightlight so he wouldn’t have to turn on the overhead.  
   
It was just a really weird night. _Really_ weird. The…pony on the treadmill and the queen watching…just. Weird. The surreal feeling would go away eventually. Had to. Better.  
   
“Nightlight, on!” Misha cheered, still hushed, and pumped a fist in the air in sheer righteousness. Gold light pooled along the shadows of her toys as he stood, illuminating the crib enough for Rosey to find it.  
   
“Wow,” Rosey breathed, running a hand over the smooth sanded wood of her bed, which was carved in the shape of a Viking ship, slats in the shape of rowing oars, tiny wooden seagulls dangling in a mobile over Abigail’s pillow. “I definitely never had digs this good.”  
   
“Thanks,” Misha said, then blushed when Rosey turned his way. “I made it.”  
   
Rosey’s mouth fell open a little, then closed. The flush spread like wildfire down the back of Misha’s neck as he ducked his head. “It’s, uh. It’s not as impressive as it looks.”  
   
It looked like Rosey turned back to the bed almost on autopilot, tucking his hands under Abigail’s arms to pull her up and out of the harness as she stirred a little, making quiet unhappy noises until he tucked her in. Misha stayed close in case he needed help (and for no other reason, honestly, even if their arms brushed), but it really did look like he knew what he was doing. Right up until he straightened, Abigail’s tiny hand locked around one of the yarn balls from his owl hat, pulling it right off his head.  
   
His shaved, bald head.  
   
Misha…Misha had no idea what his face did, only that he’d stopped breathing long enough to feeling the need for air burning in his lungs.  
   
“Would you—“  
   
“Can I—“ Rosey blurted at the same time, and they both cut off with a choked sort of gurgle as Abigail made her annoyance known.  
   
“Living room?” Misha whispered, jerking a thumb over his shoulder, no idea at all what he would do if this guy said no.  
   
Rosey nodded. Misha got a fistful of his baby harness and hauled him along.  
   
His head would not stop spinning. _Surreal._ Baby harness. _Bald._ And—And— Something snapped.  
   
He had Rosey pinned against the wall before he knew what the hell he was doing, eyes stretched wide and pleading for something in this weird world to make sense. “I know this is going to seem forward,” he said in a rush, voice still barely about a whisper even though they were well out of earshot, “but would you mind telling me your religious affiliations?”  
   
“I—“ His lips—mouth, mouth was more— _less_ —sensual—worked a couple times before sound came out. “My last name’s Rosenbaum,” he said finally, and maybe it was just how he relaxed but his hips were canting towards Misha, inviting him to lean closer, tugging Misha in with all the force of a tide as that same hand that had been cradling Abigail’s head reached up and tangled in the short hair at the nape of his neck. “So what do you think?”  
   
“Jewish,” Misha said instantly. “Please please please—“ He wasn’t even sure if he was saying ‘ _please tell me you are’_ or ‘ _please tell me you aren’t’_ because it didn’t matter. He really was losing his mind, in the arms of a complete stranger who owned an owl hat and talked to babies.  
   
“Do you make your own furniture?” Michael—because it was _Michael fucking Rosenbaum_ Misha was groping—asked, sounding the same kind of scared. There was only one real answer to that.  
   
Which was not kissing Michael Rosenbaum, but that had to be a close second.  
   
~*~  
   
Much later, sprawled on the Kripke’s couch with a bowl of popcorn balanced on Michael’s stomach—which was currently resting on Misha’s stomach—Michael broached the subject they were both thinking during a commercial for puppy chow.  
   
“So we left Padalecki in the car.”  
   
“…Huh,” Misha said, trying to muster up some concern. Then he frowned, absently nuzzling his face against the smoothness of Michael’s scalp. “No, wait, I did that on purpose. Because when the Kripkes get home I’ll just drive him back to my place.”  
   
“Oh really,” Michael said, shifting a little so he could look Misha in the eyes. “And when the Kripkes get in and find two recently recruited prophets of the lord necking on their living room couch they will…?”  
   
Misha shrugged, smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. Because, come on, _necking._ If this was the apocalypse, chain him to the wall.  “Chalk one up to the PheTomenon?”  
   
“I told you,” Michael growled against his mouth, “It’s the Rosey Effect.”   
    
   
 **Epilogue (in case me leaving J2 hanging makes your tummy hurt)**    
  
Unfortunately things didn't work out between Jensen and Danneel, but came to a lovingly amicable end, after which Jensen found solace in the arms (and pants) of his BFF Jared. They lived happily ever after until the apocalypse wiped out half the world and made Misha, Michael, and their adopted son McGee rulers of the universe, but even then they were still pretty okay.

 

THE END


End file.
